


Waiting for the Sun

by speakingwosound (sev313)



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, F/M, M/M, Multi, Robot Revolution, robots in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:48:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21745207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sev313/pseuds/speakingwosound
Summary: They won the battle, but the war isn’t over.
Relationships: Jon Favreau/Jon Lovett/Tommy Vietor/Dan Pfeiffer/Emily/Tanya/Elijah/Priyanka
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13
Collections: Crooked Secret Santa 2019





	Waiting for the Sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cestlabee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cestlabee/gifts).

> You asked for "epic idea for an AU" and really ran with it. I hope you enjoy this treat!

“Where_ is_ he?”

Emily doesn’t bother to look up. Jon’s pacing. Jon’s been pacing since their armies breached the first enemy lines over two years ago and hasn’t stopped pacing since. His feet even twitch in his sleep.

“He’ll get here when he gets here,” she shrugs. She tosses a grape and Leo jumps, his back legs creaking as he lifts a full foot off the floor to catch it. She makes a mental note to take him to the groomers soon, he’s overdue for a lube and a joint massage.

Jon growls. “Grapes are bad for dogs.”

“Grapes are bad for human dogs,” Emily corrects. “We fought a whole war about this, have you already forgotten?”

“Wasn’t a war about grapes,” Tommy snorts as he enters the courtyard through the big glass doors. French doors, the contractor had said, named and styled after an ancient Earth country that gorged itself on wine, cheese, and buttery pastries. If Emily had lived in the 20th century, she thinks she would have liked France. It’s too bad France wouldn’t have liked her back.

“Wasn’t it?” Lovett asks, coming in after Tommy and dropping his official robe in a puddle on the nearest bench. He tosses his scepter on top of it with a loud thunk. “It was about grapes and dangerous, unpaid, skilled labor and building a society based on poetry and knowledge and bettering our minds rather than our swords.”

“Not writing a lot of poetry these days,” Tommy sighs, falling onto a big cushion next to Priyanka. She lifts her head out of her book for an absent kiss, before going back to it. Tommy snorts, reading the spine, “_The Republic?_”

Pri shrug, turning the page with her long, dark fingers. She’s been talking a lot lately about shedding the human skin her original makers had forced her into and going with the more natural look that’s been all the rage since long before the robot uprising began. Emily likes her own blond hair and long, pale limbs covered in synthetic skin, but she wonders, sometimes, if she’s been programmed to like it or if she actually likes it.

Emily shakes herself, tossing another grape into the air. Lucca beats Leo to it this time, and Leo falls back to the ground with a metallic clang, blinking his wide, dark eyes at Emily in betrayal. She shrugs at him and murmurs, “should have been faster.”

“Figured we should read up a bit,” Pri explains, turning another page gracefully. “Now that we have a chance to build our own society from the ground up, we should try to make it at least a little better than the human dictators, no? Some ancient Earth governments were actually pretty great.”

“Of course we should.” Dan slides down next to her, folding his knees under himself and leaning against her back, dropping his lips to her shoulder. “First robot PhD in philosophy? At least some of the human scholars must have resisted picking up arms to fight.”

“Most, I hope.” Pri rests her head against his. “Historical government maybe?”

“That sounds perfect,” Dan grins.

“That-” Lovett points at Pri as he flops down on the cushion next to Emily, dropping his head back with an exhausted sigh and quickly turns into a laugh as Pundit climbs onto her back legs to lick at his forehead- “is why we fought this war. Not all this bureaucratic bullshit.”

Emily snorts, running her fingers through Lovett’s curls. Royal compromiser in chief has never been in Lovett’s wheelhouse, as he reminds them every day. But he’s better at talking than he is at holding a sword, and he’d spent most of the war in the capital fixing things and coordinating their communications efforts, so he’s the one who knows the magistrates who are left, both the humans and the non-humans. As Emily looks at him, though, she can see the frustrated wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and the creases in his forehead that are getting deeper and deeper every day. Artificially created and begging for attention, but still an outward manifestation of his inward frustrations. “How was court today?”

“Awful,” Lovett groans, resting his head against her hip and closing his eyes. “Everyone is an idiot, our own side included.”

Tommy sighs, folding his arms behind his head and crossing his ankles. Dan reaches behind Pri to twist his free hand gently around Tommy’s wrist and Tommy visibly releases a breath. “There’s so much infighting from the colonies. We have to consolidate our power or they won’t listen to us.”

Jon turns on his heel, pacing across the big French doors. “That’s what I’ve been _saying_.”

“You,” Emily swivels her head to glare at him, “are impatient for impatience’s sake. Tommy is making a good faith argument.”

Jon throws up his arms. He’s taken to wearing loose pajama pants all day and night under an elegantly embroidered robe they’d found when they stormed the palace, and she can see the way his chest heaves under the fabric. “Our partner is _out there_, god only knows where, dealing with god only knows what, but oh, that’s right, worrying about him is worrying in _bad faith_.”

Emily rolls her eyes and pats the cushion on her other side. “So fucking dramatic. Come sit. Lovett will give you a relaxing blowjob.”

Lovett snorts without opening his eyes. “Will I?”

“Don’t worry,” Jon glowers at them, “I don’t want one.”

Emily raises an eyebrow at the twitch between his thighs. “I don’t believe you.”

“Mute point,” Lovett yawns. “I’m too tired for even a wet dream.”

Lovett’s breath is warm against Emily’s hip and she shifts her knees together. If Lovett won’t blow him, she might be willing to fuck him. Or maybe she can tempt Pri away from her book, she’s been known to have some success with distracting Pri from even the densest of readings. Emily spent many cold, lonely nights out on the battlefields thinking about that time, just days before the uprising began in earnest, when she had snuck into the library and under the desk, spread Pri’s legs and-

The bells chime. The big bells, the ones on the tallest watchtower. The ones that warn of only two things: an enemy approach or the return of a conquering hero.

Emily’s chest pounds in a mix of fear and hope as she reaches for the dagger in her boot. Jon stumbles forward, tripping over his robe as he lunches for the sword he keeps in the corner of the main courtyard. Dan and Tommy are already standing, knees bent and thighs bunched in anticipation.

Pri licks the tip of her finger and turns another page. “Stand down. Either way, they have to get through eight layers of guards before they can reach us.”

Lovett snorts, rolling onto his back and fending off all three dogs as he pushes to his knees. “I’m with Pri.”

There’s the clanging sound of boots on stone and Jon waves frantically at Lovett. “Shut _up_, both of you.”

Lovett rolls his eyes, sliding to his feet with little grace and pulling the dagger from its thigh holster at the same time. Pri saves her place with her index finger and pulls herself into a sitting position.

“It’s him,” Tanya’s voice filters down the stone hallway and into the courtyard before the glass doors swing open automatically. She skids to a stop, her boots clattering against the floor and her captain of the guard’s cloak flowing around her knees. “He’s home.”

Emily can’t help the grin spreading across her face. “Really?”

Jon pushes forward, past Tanya and into the hallway. He stops, looking both ways frantically. “Which way?”

Tanya laughs, her voice half an octave higher and her shoulders softer than Emily’s seen them since the war ended officially but not materially. “To the left. He’s by the side gate.”

“Idiot,” Jon mutters, turning his feet to the left and jogging down the hallway.

“He doesn’t want a scene,” Tanya trails off, making no effort to make her voice carry far enough to reach Jon.

Emily grins, wrapping an arm around Tanya’s waist and pulling her into a quick, messy kiss. “No chance of that.”

“No,” Tanya giggles, leaning into Emily’s shoulder. Her fingers are strong, none of the shaking Emily’s been feeling in them for months. “I don’t imagine so.”

“What are we waiting for, then?” Tommy asks, sheathing his sword and stepping up behind them, squeezing their necks gently.

“Nothing,” Emily grins. Her cheeks feel flushed and aching from the width and strength of her smile. “Nothing at all.”

She drops her hand, twisting her fingers with Tanya’s and pulling her back down the hall. She curses the twisting walkways and spiral staircases as she jogs after Jon.

She likes living in the palace. It’s full of long, wide hallways made of expensive, historical materials. The human dictator used to complain about its draftiness, but, while Emily can feel cold in the academic sense, she isn’t bothered by it. Besides, she likes the way fire light plays over Jon’s skin and settles in the warm blue of Dan’s eyes. 

Right now, though, she’s wishing that the palace was smaller. Like, their old, rickety two-bedroom apartment in the outskirts of town kind of smaller. Then, at least, she always had her partners in close proximity, and she never had to jog down five flights of stairs and at least a mile of stone hallway to get to-

She stops at the bottom of the last set of stairs. There he is, looking tired and windblown, his hair at least three inches longer than it should be and starting to curl around his ears. As he slides down from his robot horse, Emily can see the way he’s limping, his left leg a moment slower than his right, and his whole face screws up in pain as he hits the cobblestones.

Emily watches as Jon pulls him into a desperate hug, the anger and frustration and fear and worry visibly seeping out of him, feeding the weeds sticking out between the stones. Emily can feel herself grin, and grin even wider as Tanya uses her own momentum to pull both her and Emily out of the stairwell and across the last few feet of courtyard to skid to a stop in front of them.

“Hi,” Emily smiles through her tears, reaching up to take Elijah’s face in hers. She runs her thumbs over the deep, dark circles under his eyes and the sallow hollows of his cheeks. “Welcome home.”

Elijah tilts his head into her hands, dropping his mouth to meet hers. He tastes like sweat and the dust of the road, like boxed crackers and canned tuna fish, like the end of a war that’s spanned months and years. Emily has never tasted anything so good.

“Stop hogging him,” Lovett huffs, pushing between her and Tanya and pulling Elijah towards him. “You did it?”

Elijah nods, pulling a crackling piece of parchment from his back pocket. “Everyone signed. Every colony has surrendered.”

Tommy whoops, wrapping his hands tightly around Elijah’s hips and lifting him high into the air. “The war is over.”

Elijah shakes his head, his smile fond under his tired eyes as he twists his fingers into Tommy’s hair.

“Our conquering hero has returned,” Dan grins, wrapping an arm around Jon’s neck and pulling him close. “And now maybe we can turn to the work of rebuilding a nation, hmm?”

“Yeah,” Jon turns to press his nose into Dan’s cheek. “Tomorrow. Tonight, we celebrate.”

Pri giggles, watery and warm. She buries her head in Emily’s shoulder, wetting her thin tunic. “Our family’s home.”

“Yeah.” Emily grins, wrapping an arm around Pri’s waist. They have a long road in front of them, but it feels more possible than it did just an hour ago. She feels invincible, and looking at Elijah’s tired, road weary face, she knows that she’s not the only one. She presses her lips to Pri’s temple. “Yeah, it is. Bring on the champagne.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos always appreciated!


End file.
